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Another election season Tuesday means primaries. Florida was in the spotlight on Aug. 18, particularly since Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has shaped the Sunshine State – the Free State of Florida – into a solidly red, freedom-loving (for the most part) enclave, is term-limited. His successor will be Republican Byron Donalds or former U.S. Rep. David Jolly, who, bending with the wind, went from Republican to independent to Democrat. In other news, one of President Donald Trump’s former Deep State antagonists failed in his bid for a cushy congressional seat.
Alexander Vindman, whose claim to fame is being a star witness for the Democrats in Trump’s impeachment hearing – the first time around with the imaginary “quid pro quo” transgression involving Ukraine – didn’t stand a chance. He was soundly defeated by Florida State Rep. Angie Nixon, endorsed by all the leading “Democratic Socialists,” in his bid for now-Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s Senate seat. This was a special election, since Ashley Moody (R) was appointed in 2025 to fill Rubio’s seat once he was nominated to join President Trump’s cabinet. Moody handily won her own primary race.
Pivotal Primaries
Florida has always been a prize target for the political left. While they frequently express their desire to do away with the Electoral College, they know that’s a hard sell. So, ironically, leftists have plotted for many years to gain control of red states with the most Electoral College votes. It’s a short list: Texas, Florida, Georgia, and North Carolina.
They are well on their way to taking Georgia – thanks to a complicit Georgia Republican Party, one could fairly speculate. North Carolina is now practically a blue state, having been overrun in the larger urban areas the same way Virginia was.
That leaves Texas and Florida as the last real battlegrounds upon which the permanent political control of the United States of America will be determined. Again, it is ironic that Democrats are fighting so hard to control an electoral system they frequently disparage and often suggest should be eliminated.
It appears, though, that the Democrats’ main problem is putting forward candidates who appeal to the states they are attempting to win over. Nixon is aligned with the Democratic Socialists, running for office in a state heavily populated by Latinos who fled the horrors of Cuban and South American socialist dictatorships. In Texas, the Democrats have pinned their hopes on James Talarico, who, like their previous Texas darling, Beto O’Rourke, is entirely incapable of connecting with real Texans on any level.
It seems the midterm and general elections over the past three decades have all been the most consequential elections in anyone’s lifetime. Perhaps that has always been the case. Still – and regardless of one’s political persuasion – the 2026 midterms may in fact be the most significant, and the primaries set the stage. For the first time, perhaps in living memory, numerous candidates are running on a platform that goes even beyond former President Barack Obama’s dream of a “fundamental transformation” of America. So-called Democratic Socialists are openly describing not just a transformation, but a tearing down and rebuilding of the United States into something the founding fathers wouldn’t even recognize.
In that respect, Florida might be the ultimate proving ground. If those who wish to rebrand America as the new and improved socialist utopia can prevail there, then maybe there is no hope for the Americans who want to preserve what this country was originally supposed to be.
